La Religieuse (1966)
Directed by Jacques Rivette

Film Review

A haunting portrayal of repression and religious hypocrisy,  Jacques Rivette's beautifully rendered adaptation of Denis Diderot's unfinished novel presages the director's later Joan of Arc diptych and helped to establish him as one of the leading lights of the French New Wave.  The subject of the film and the scandal it provoked were appropriate for the time at which it was released, on the eve of the massive youth rebellion of May 1968.  Although set in the 18th Century, the film proved to be highly relevant for the late 1960s.

The irony is that La Religieuse, a modest and austere historical drama, would most likely have passed without much furore if various pressure groups (including associations of parents of children in private education) had not put pressure on the Catholic Church and the French government to have the film banned, even before it was made.  Jean-Luc Godard had previously mounted a stage production of Diderot's novel in Paris, with Anna Karina in the leading role, and this had not aroused the slightest whiff of scandal.   Despite growing opposition to the film, Rivette succeeded in completing it, but permission to have it released in 1966 was revoked early that year.  An outright ban on the film's distribution was imposed by Yvon Bourges, the secretary of state at the French Ministry of Information.

What then ensued was a fierce battle between the artistic intelligentsia, led by Jean-Luc Godard, and representatives of the Catholic Church, who were convinced the film was both blasphemous and defamatory.  Recently appointed Minister of Information, André Malraux failed to prevent La Religieuse from being shown at the Cannes Film Festival in 1966 and his actions served merely to widen the gulf between a government that was now appearing authoritarian and out-of-touch and an increasingly fractious youth culture.  Although the ban was lifted in 1967, the film was rated with an 18 certification, which remained in force until 1975.  When La Religieuse was released in July 1967, it was a notable box office success, thanks to the widespread publicity surrounding its banning.

Those who saw La Religieuse when it was first released must have been surprised by its content, because there is nothing in this film to provoke scandal of the kind that the Catholic Church feared.  Faithful to Diderot's novel, the film makes no direct comment on contemporary issues and is remarkably restrained, playing down the lesbian theme and making it clear that it condemns misguided individuals, not the Church or the Christian faith.  La Religieuse is actually a highly moral film of the kind which the Catholic Church should have endorsed, since it asserts the self-evident truth that only those who have a genuine vocation are fit to dedicate their lives to their religion.  It is hard to see how such an innocuous work could become the object of a reactionary backlash. Indeed, this backlash says a good deal more about the Church and its supporters than the film itself does.

In her most memorable screen role, Anna Karina gives a remarkable and nuanced performance, offering a heart-wrenching depiction of crushed resistance which must have resonated with her audience.   Through her association with the directors of the French New Wave (in particular, her then-husband Jean-Luc Godard), Karina became closely identified with the liberated modern woman of the 1960s, and so her casting in the lead role of this film was an inspired and appropriate choice.  Karina's Suzanne Simonin represented a free-thinking younger generation that had grown tired of being oppressed and dictated to by an intolerant establishment.  Suzanne's act of rebellion would be played out for real across France in the spring of 1968, bringing empowerment to the younger generation and an early end to the De Gaulle presidency.  Both on screen and off, La Religieuse demonstrated that there is no greater stimulus for revolution than repression.

Film Synopsis

Suzanne Simonin is forced by her parents to enter a convent at the age of 16.  Traumatised by the harassment she receives from her Mother Superior, she starts to rebel and is transferred to another convent.  Here, things are not much better and she finds herself the object of desire of another Mother Superior, a closet lesbian...